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Have any of you ever had flexibility problems with your fiberglass knee armor?
The reason I ask is... you know how when you squat, the circumference of
your lower thigh expands? If you don't know what I mean, wrap a piece of
tape tightly around your leg (just above the knee) and watch it burst when
you squat. Don't try it with your knee armor unless it's sintra.

Anyway, I'm paranoid that my knee armor is going to explode if accidentally
squat or kneel while wearing it. In careful tests, the sides spread out, and I
just know they'd snap if I went down all the way. Have any of you had this
problem? If so, what did you do to accommodate it? Have any of you ever
had your knee armor explode because of this? Sounds funny, but I'm totally
serious.

Well Joren Fett it was via a very scientific process... I cut the 3/4" aluminum stock from Home Depot into approximately 15" long pieces and then proceeded to bend them into shape over the circular handrails of my wife's treadmill.

But I did have to use a pair of vice-grips and the sharp edges of my metal workbench to make the fine bends at the ends of the pieces that turned back toward the armors so that my jumpsuit wouldn't snag when I put them on. I then glued the aluminum stock to the insides with plasti-weld two part epoxy found at Walmart (used epoxy for its flexibility). Sanded and smoothed everything with 60 grit sandpaper and rounded off the ends with the dremel.
Fin

Yeah Skalen Fehl, more than likely JD's knee armor were fine without the reinforcement and in one of the pics of the thread I even show how bendable they are without breakage. But since I've been a victim of knee armor breaking right before an appearance and since JD expressed some concern about the other mod I made, I decided to do the reinforcement.

I got the idea from reinforcing my other knee armor with sintra strips in a similar manner. But this time with the caliber of the knee armors I decide to take it up a notch and use aluminum for more piece of mind when trooping and transporting. Plus, the aluminum is very lightweight adding virtually no additional weight, and they are still slightly adjustable.

I happened to be at both Home Depot and Lowe's a few times today (a few
times more than I'd planned to, that is), and I found the 3/4" metal strips. I was
undecided between steel and aluminum. I see that you chose aluminum, which is
certainly much lighter and easier to bend than steel, but I would have thought
aluminum would flex too much under pressure rather than reinforce the
fiberglass. Is your 1/8" thick aluminum resistant to flexing when you bend your
knee? It IS the 1/8" thick stuff, right?

Joren Fett, not only will the steel be much more difficult to bend, but it will add weight to your armor that may cause them to sag on your knee when you're wearing them. Go with the 1/8" aluminum. Plus you want to keep in mind that the aluminum does have a little "give" that you want so you can adjust the flare of the knee armor a little once the reinforcement is installed and allow for "give" for when you do have to bend down while wearing them. But of course the final decision is up to you.
Cruzer